Magzter Inc. which counts itself among the fastest growing digital magazine store and newsstand that is compliant with multiple platforms announced having secured $10 million in a series B funding. The latest round of funding is aimed at further consolidating their position as one of the largest operators in the field of digital magazine stores besides also venturing into digital books. The company has also set itself a lofty target to build a library comprising of more than a million ebooks available on its platform by early 2014.
The latest round of funding is led by Singapore Press Holdings which holds considerable clout in the South-East Asian regions and elsewhere in the world. It publishes over 100 magazines that reach more than 3 million readers.
As for Magzter, the New York based company that started operation in 2011 has managed to ink partnership with more than 900 publishers which has flooded its magstore with over 2,850 issues of magazines covering 30 international languages. This has drawn in 16 million users of its app in over 200 countries in the short span of just 2 years. Magzter has been one of the most downloaded app on iOS in several countries.
One of the biggest pluses with Magzter is that its proprietary publishing software that enables publishers to make available their content on multiple platforms. As has been reported by Techcrunch, “Magzter is also working on product solutions that better automatically format content from magazines for small screen devices, so that publications can reach an audience on iPhone at the same time as they reach the iPad and tablet crowd, but with a delivery method better suited to the smaller screen.”
“Over time, we have seen a lot of the publishers in other geographies, a lot of the licensees in different parts of the world, are using Magzter,” said Magzter CEO Girish Ramdas. “If you go to Magzter and type in ‘Maxim’,” for example, you’ll find 10 to 15 editions of Magzter from different countries, including Switzerland, South Africa, India, Singapore, etc.”
Vijayakumar Radhakrishnan, co-founder and president of Magzter also added they are thinking of offering an ad based model where users will get to read the content for free while costs will be met with revenue from advertisements. Currently, Magzter rely on a revenue sharing agreement with publishers which means they earn revenue only when the publishers make money. This they claim allows them an edge over the subscription based service offered by Adobe.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.